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Joe McQuaid's Publisher's Notebook: Cohen has ties to Trump, but no Trump ties

I know this because the first time I met our President, I was also introduced to attorney Cohen. He has been called Trump’s “fixer,” but Trump just called him his lawyer.

Cohen has been in the news of late with much speculation as to what he may or may not say to a certain special counsel.

When I met him, I showed Cohen the new Trump tie I was wearing for the occasion. (A Politics and Eggs event at St. Anselm College.)

Cohen, fingering his own tie, smiled and said he never wore Trump ties. I think he was sporting an Armani silk number that day.

I quickly ratted out Cohen to his boss. Trump just shook his head and said, “He never wears my ties.”

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News had a big interview with Cohen last week, with the supposed bombshell revelation that Cohen places his wife, family, and country before any other loyalties.

The anti-Trump world went nuts over this. Trump’s in trouble now, they said.

I have a news flash: Trump is often in trouble, though never in doubt. He signed a deal with Little Rocket Man last month and said that this was the end of North Korea’s nuclear threat. (Turns out, the Rocket is still working on his nukes.)

Trump also had a phone chat aboard Air Force One recently with a U.S. senator from New Jersey, who turned out to be a prankster comic. (What’s the difference, I wonder, between a senator and a comic?) This incident would be of no concern except that the prankster reversed the charges (Google it) and now the U.S. has a million-dollar phone bill.

But somehow I don’t think Trump worries about Michael Cohen and what he might say. If you work for Donald J. Trump and he knows you don’t wear his ties, nothing else you do is going to surprise him.

Our editorial page quote of the day last Thursday was “Never give a sucker an even break.”

It was attributed to the late vaudeville impresario, Edward F. Albee. But it was made popular in a movie of that name by W.C. Fields.

At first, I was tempted to change the credit to Fields, but then I thought it would be just like Fields to have “borrowed” such a line. Fields, asked in a movie if the card game he was in was a “game of chance,” curtly replied, “Not the way I play.”

Fields would have had a few choice observations for today’s passing political parade with its cast of characters. And then he would have had another nip of gin.